


Stay Awake (When I'm Asleep)

by lost_lunar_wolf



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Broken Bones, Gen, Happy Ending, Hypothermia, Irondad, NOT STARKER - Freeform, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Can't Thermoregulate, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Platonic Cuddling, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark has Anxiety, Whump, i think, no beta we die like men, spiderson, this is platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_lunar_wolf/pseuds/lost_lunar_wolf
Summary: Peter turned to look behind him.  Smoke.  Dense black smoke clouded the sky."MR. STARK!"  Peter screamed as he pushed off of the tree taking off in the direction of the smoke.It was far away, that much was apparent, but that didn't stop him.  Everyone had to be okay.  They had to be.  They were the Avengers, they had to be okay, right?Peter ran, ignoring the sharp pain shooting through his leg, ignoring the burning in his chest, ignoring the harsh snow that was blistering his face.  He did everything he could to cover up but it was futile.  That didn't matter to him though.  He was determined to find it, to find the quinjet, to find his friends, to find Tony, no, dad.ORWhen the quinjet crashes after raiding a Hydra base, Peter finds himself alone in the woods in the middle of a snow storm.  By the time he finds the team he's chilled to the bone and nothing works to try and warm him up.  That's how Tony and the team find themselves with a hypothermic spider-kid in the middle of the woods with no help in sight.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 318





	Stay Awake (When I'm Asleep)

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to apologize in advance for any medical inaccuracies. I tried to explain my thought process in the end notes but I'm bad at explaining things. I don't think there are any trigger warnings, but read the tags and if you want me to add any to the notes please let me know! I hope you all enjoy my attempt to make something whumpy!

The sound of wind rushed through Peter's ears causing him to groan. 

_ Wind? There's no wind on the quinjet. Wait, the jet? _

He frantically sat up only now realizing he was laying in the snow. That sudden rush of adrenaline went away as quickly as it came and Peter shivered at the cold. 

"KAREN please turn on the heater." Peter mumbled, fighting the urge to close his eyes.

There was no response.

"KAREN?" Peter asked, this time slightly more alert than before.

No response. He pulled the semi shredded mask off his face in frustration.

"No no no no no, this can't be happening."

Peter scrambled to his feet, almost collapsing from the sudden wave of dizziness that hit him and the pain shooting through his leg. He leaned onto a tree for support, letting out a sigh of relief when the dizziness passed. Slowly the kid opened his eyes taking in his surroundings.

It was snowing, not too hard, but the wind made it feel like ice shards were hitting him as it hit the suit and his face. The forest he was in was covered with snow, most of it looking pretty fresh. It easily made its way up to his knees. There was nobody else but him. He was alone and all he wanted was to feel warm, feel safe, feel almost anything that wasn't this fear or this cold, but he couldn't get any of that right now. 

"Mr. Stark?" Peter called out, but he knew nobody would hear him. "MR. STARK!"

There was no response. The only thing he heard besides the wind was the echo his voice left behind, but that was gone as soon as it came.

Peter turned to look behind him. Smoke. Dense black smoke clouded the sky.

"MR. STARK!" Peter screamed as he pushed off of the tree taking off in the direction of the smoke.

It was far away, that much was apparent, but that didn't stop him. Everyone had to be okay. They had to be. They were the Avengers, they had to be okay, right? 

Peter ran, ignoring the sharp pain shooting through his leg, ignoring the burning in his chest, ignoring the harsh snow that was blistering his face. He did everything he could to cover up but it was futile. That didn't matter to him though. He was determined to find it, to find the quinjet, to find his friends, to find Tony, no,  _ dad _ .

Running through the snow was hard. Even being extremely in tune with his senses wouldn't help him here. Each time Peter fell, he would scramble back to his feet and keep going. He wouldn't stop no matter what. With every step he looked around thinking maybe he'd see one of his teammates going in the same direction, but he saw no one.

The closer Peter got the more he could smell the burning. That alone made him pick up his pace if that was even possible. 

After running for what seemed like hours, Peter finally busted through the trees into a clearing. Straight ahead he could see the quinjet smoking and partway buried in the ground.

"MR. STARK!" Peter screamed, frantically making his way to the other side of the jet, the limp in his steps clear to anyone looking.

"Steve, call Tony. Peter?" He heard someone ask and he almost let out a cry when it wasn't Mr. Stark's voice. "Peter thank god you're okay we were all so worried."

Peter saw Natasha come around from the other side of the jet pulling him into a hug when she got close enough.

"мама паук." Peter let out a sigh of relief, but instantly tensed remembering Tony. "Where's Mr. Stark?"

"He said something about KAREN being offline then ran off to look for you." Natasha said wrapping a coat around his shoulder and leading him to the other side of the jet.

"Is he okay?" 

"Besides freaking out about you not being here, he seemed okay, but we'll never know for sure because he refused to let Bruce check for any injuries."

Peter only nodded and stayed silent, trying to nuzzle himself closer to Natasha to stay warm. He just wanted Tony. He wanted Tony to hug him and keep him warm. He wanted Tony to help him feel safe. He wanted Tony to run his fingers through his curls to calm him down. He wanted Tony to be okay. He just wanted Tony, but if Tony wasn’t here then Natasha would have to make do, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t constantly worrying about Tony. It wasn’t like he didn’t want Natasha or wasn’t grateful for Natasha, but he had to make sure that Tony was okay.

When the two rounded the corner, Peter saw the whole team there except for Tony and he tried to ignore the tears pooling in his eyes threatening to spill. Natasha kept her arms wrapped around Peter and he was grateful that she was warm, but he still wanted Tony. 

Peter wasn’t sure how long Natasha was holding him close and he ignored the team's attempts to try and talk to him. The only voice he let filter through was Natasha’s reassurances that came every so often. Letting anything else come through was too exhausting, though his brain was still on overdrive thinking of Tony. What if Tony was hurt and didn't tell anyone? What if he didn't make it back? What if Tony got even more hurt while looking for him? What if-

"Pete! Oh my god thank god you're here!" Tony exclaimed, rushing towards Peter.

"Mr. Stark." Peter breathed detaching himself from Natasha throwing himself into Tony's arms. 

The man pulled Peter close holding him protectively. Peter finally let himself break and the tears started flowing down his face. It felt like they were turning to ice as they fell, but he didn't care.

"I was so scared Mr. Stark." Peter cried burying his head into Tony's shoulder. "You weren't there and it's so cold and KAREN wasn't working and-"

"Shhh it's okay Pete I got you now, you're safe." Tony reassured running his fingers through Peter's snow coated curls. 

"What are we gonna do Mr. Stark?" Peter asked.

"We are trying to get a message out to S.H.I.E.L.D and while we wait we are going to go check out this cabin I saw while looking for you."

Peter only nodded in response. He tuned out whatever Tony was saying to the rest of the team and just kept himself as close to Tony as he could. If saying it was warmer that way wasn't the only reason for this, then no one had to know.

Soon enough the team was walking in the direction of whatever cabin Tony had spotted. Peter was limping, the adrenaline finally dying down made him semi aware of the pain in his leg and he was shaking from the cold even though he was still pressed close to Tony. He tried to stop his teeth from chattering but eventually gave up.

"Pete are you okay?" Tony asked looking over at the kid. "Woah you're practically blue. Guys we gotta speed this up before the kid gets even colder." He called out to the team and turned back to Peter. "It's not much farther kiddo."

Peter just nuzzled himself closer to Tony. He felt bad saying he was cold especially since someone had already given him a jacket. His suit was soaked and he was chilled to the bone, but he still didn't say anything.

At some point they arrived at the cabin, Peter wasn't really sure how long it took because he had zoned out, but just stepping inside it felt warmer, though not by much. He stumbled towards the couch he saw and practically collapsed onto it, finally giving in to his brain's request to shut off.

~~~

Tony quickly took off his jacket and laid it over top of Peter while pulling the kid onto his lap wrapping his arms around him protectively to try and warm him up .

"Can someone try and start a fire please and can we see if there are any blankets or something around?" Tony asked. "The kid is practically an ice cube over here."

Moments later Steve and Bucky were kneeling by the fireplace to assess that situation and Natasha was going through all the cabinets and closets searching for blankets. Bruce came over and bent down in front of Peter.

"Peter can you hear me?" Bruce asked.

"'S hot." Peter slurred as if he was drunk.

"Crap." Bryce mumbled under his breath. "Tony how warm are you?"

"Warmer than him." Tony remarked and Bruce gave him a look and he immediately changed his answer. "Really warm my under suit is insulated."

"Alright, he's going into the advanced stages of hypothermia, so if his suit is wet, we need to get him out of it and he needs skin to skin contact."

"Okay then can you hold him for a second?" Tony asked and Bruce immediately sat down on the couch and pulled the boy into him ignoring Peters whines in protest.

Tony quickly pulled off his shirt and took the jackets off of Peter, setting them to the side, while Bruce pressed his index and middle finger against Peter's neck to find a pulse.

"Okay he actually has a pretty strong pulse, so I think his healing factor is working enough to keep him from getting much worse for a while." Bruce said and Tony nodded.

"The kid is gonna hate us for this." Tony muttered hovering his hand over the spider on the front of the suit.

"I think he'll understand it was to save his life." Bruce said.

Tony sighed pressing the spider and the suit went loose around the kid. Carefully Tony pulled the suit off the kid and brought him back into his lap while Bruce covered them with the jackets. Peter immediately curled up closer to Tony and wrapped his arms around the man's torso. 

"We'll have the fire going soon." Bruce said and Tony gave him a worried look. "He'll be fine Tony, we just need to warm him up. I'll see if there's anything I can boil water with and we'll try to make some hot packs for him."

Tony gave a half nod and pulled Peter closer to himself.

"Do you think you can check his left leg, he was limping pretty badly on the way here." 

Bruce bent down once again and pulled Peter's leg out from under him, the kid flinching in response. He ran his fingers down the front of Peter’s leg, feeling for any sort of abnormalities.

"From what I can tell based on what I felt and the amount of swelling and bruising, I'm assuming he has a fractured tibia, but I can't know for sure if his fibula is fractured as well. Considering he was able to walk I'm going to assume it's intact." Bruce said looking up at Tony. "I'll try and find some stuff to stabilize it, but until we get him to the medbay there isn't really anything else I can do. Hopefully it doesn't have to be reset because once his healing factor kicks in it will heal pretty fast and if it is out of place it will have to be rebroken."

"Wow thanks for that reassurance Bruce." Tony scoffed, rolling his eyes. He paused for a second taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry that was mean, I'm just freaking out right now."

"It's okay Tony I get it. I'll be back once I find something to help him." Bruce stood up to walk away but stopped and turned back towards Tony. "I know FRIDAY was disabled on the suit, but is it possible to just get the leg of it on him? That would be enough to stabilize it until we get out of here."

"Probably, if someone can drag it in here I'll walk you through how to detach its leg and put it on him." Tony said motioning towards the door.

Bruce nodded and walked away, Tony assumed (hopefully) that Bruce was going to get help. Natasha came over a few minutes later and draped a large heavy quilt over them.

"'ove you dad." Peter slurred nuzzling his face into the crook of Tony's neck. 

"Love you too kiddo." Tony said, placing a soft kiss on Peter's head.

***

Tony was on the couch for about 30 minutes with Peter in his arms when Bruce and Clint (finally) dragged the suit in front of the couch. 

"Alright what do I do?" Bruce asked sitting on the floor with the suit next to him.

"Okay the lateral side of the left knee there is what looks like a bolt, push that." Tony instructed and Bruce pressed it and the lower leg detached from the rest of the suit. "Now there's another one of those at the ankle, but this time press the one on the medial side." Bruce pressed this button and the leg opened so one could easily side their foot in and out of it. "Now just slide his foot into it then close it." 

Bruce nodded and slid Peter's foot into it making sure his leg was straight before snapping it shut.

"This should keep it stable enough until we can get him to the medbay. Clint is in the kitchen, if you can even call it that, boiling some water, so we'll bring something in for him soon." Bruce said standing up. "Try to get some sleep Tony."

"Not gonna happen." Tony scoffed.

"It was worth a try." Bruce shrugged and walked away, leaving Tony with his thoughts, and his freezing kid.

***

Tony couldn't sleep, though he didn't actually try. He was too scared if he fell asleep Peter would get worse or he'd wake up and Tony wouldn't be there to calm him if needed.

Bruce came by to check on Peter periodically to make sure he wasn't getting worse. Even though everything Bruce was saying was technically positive, Peter still wasn't awake, which meant he couldn’t stop worrying, no he wouldn't stop worrying. If Tony was completely honest he never actually stops worrying about Peter, but sometimes he worries a bit less. Right now is not one of those times. 

Peter's skin was still cold to the touch, but it was slightly warmer than when they got to the cabin. He hoped the kids healing factor would continue to work, but he also knew Peter already had a problem with thermoregulation. And that anxiety filled part of his brain wouldn't be quiet, telling him that Peters healing wouldn't help hypothermia, or-

"Tony stop thinking." Natasha said, pulling Tony out of his thoughts as she sat down on the other end of the couch.

"I wasn't thinking." Tony replied automatically in attempts to defend himself.

"That's a lie because you're always thinking." Natasha pointed out.

"Yeah but that doesn't mean you have to call me out on my bullshit."

"That's the exact opposite of what it means. I always have to call you out on your bullshit. If I don't, no one else will."

"Pepper would. So would Rhodey." 

"True. But seriously Tony stop thinking right now. He'll be fine. His healing is even better than both Steve and Bucky's combined." Natasha said in attempts to calm Tony down.

It didn't work. All it did was make his brain try to work even harder. "But-"

"No buts. We've almost got something put together to send out a signal to SHIELD. We'll be out of here in no time. If he doesn't wake up before SHIELD gets here then they have proper medical supplies in the medbay, but I doubt that will be needed for him to wake up. So stop thinking and get some sleep." 

"I'm not sleeping until he wakes up." Tony firmly stated. 

"If you won't sleep then at least stop thinking." Natasha gave him a soft pat on the shoulder before standing up from the couch.

"You and I both know neither of those will ever happen.”

***

Peter woke up in a daze and snuggled closer to whatever that warmth he felt was. His mind was foggy, he had no clue where he was but, it was warm and he felt safe. 

"Hey kiddo how're you doing?" He heard someone ask.

"Hey Mr. Stark." Peter mumbled, then a few moments later processed he actually said 'dad' instead. He instantly pulled away, his back hitting the other end of the couch. "Oh my god Mr. Stark I'm so sorry I didn't mean it I'm sorry I'm so so so sor-"

Tony cut the kid off. "Pete stop rambling, you're fine, besides scaring the crap out of me, you didn't do anything wrong."

"Oh..." Peter trailed off for a moment looking down at his hands in his lap then his gaze shifted to his leg. "What happened?"

"Come back here first then I'll tell you." Peter just stayed where he was fiddling with his hands. "Bruce said your hypothalamus would still be messed up for a little bit so you're probably not thermoregulating properly right now. So get back over here."

This time Peter sighed and crawled back into Tony's lap, and the man covered them back up with the blanket. 

"Now will you tell me what happened? Peter asked, resting his head on Tony's shoulder.

"First tell me what you remember?" 

"We took out that Hydra base then the quinjet crashed and I was alone and now I'm here." 

Tony sucked in a breath and pulled Peter closer to himself.

"So after the jet crashed we all managed to get to the site of the crash, but you weren't there so I went out looking for you. About an hour or so after that Steve came over the coms and said you had made it there. When I got there you were pretty cold and your suit was wet, but you didn't seem that out of it. We started walking to this cabin that I found and that's when you started to really go down hill. Once we got here Bruce assessed you and we quickly figured out you were going into the advanced stages of hypothermia, so we did what we had to do to warm you up, and then we had to stabilize your leg."

"So that's why we're cuddling?" Peter whispered trying to sound upset, but was internally smiling to himself.

"Yes that's why we're cuddling. Don't sound so upset about it, I already know you love cuddling." Tony laughed and Peter buried his face into Tony’s chest in embarrassment. "I'm just teasing you kid. But seriously you've fallen asleep on me during more movies than I can count, I honestly don't mind."

"Really?"

"Really."

"So we can cuddle on movie nights when I'm not asleep?" Peter asked tentatively.

"Yeah I don't see that being a problem." Tony replied, running his fingers through Peter's hair. 

The two laid there for a while and Tony continued to play with his kid's hair. 

"Did I say anything embarrassing?" Peter asked, breaking the silence.

"I mean you called me dad and said I love you." Peter groaned hiding his face. "But then I said I love you too so you can stop being embarrassed about it."

"Did you mean it?"

"Would I say it if I didn't mean it?"

"Well I-I do-don't know, ma-maybe..." Peter stuttered.

"I meant it Pete."

Peter sighed, closing his eyes, going practically limp on Tony.

"Get some sleep kiddo. Hopefully when you wake up we'll have a way out of here." Tony kissed his head and squeezed the kid tighter. "I love you kid."

"Love you too Mr. Stark."

"Ah ah, we're at dad now." Tony chuckled.

"Love you too dad." Peter mumbled and Tony laughed.

It only took a few minutes for Peter to fall asleep and Tony wished they were at the tower so FRIDAY could've gotten a recording. Now knowing his kid would be okay Tony finally allowed himself to get some sleep. And if he truly enjoyed cuddling with his kid, no one would ever know except Peter and himself.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'd just like to say that in almost all cases you cannot walk on a fractured tibia because it is the weight bearing bone, however, Peter was on an adrenaline rush and was suffering from hypothermia and has super healing, so we are going with the assumption that his brain was not registering pain normally because of the hypothermia and adrenaline, so please don't come at me with my limited knowledge of human medical facts, I'm more knowledgeable with dogs and cats. Also Bruce said his fibula was most likely not fractured because he could walk, even though the fibula is not a weight-bearing bone, breaking both your tibia and fibula would most likely cause a lot more damage to muscles and ligaments than just breaking one or the other. Sorry for my kinda medical rant.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoyed! Come say hi to me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lost-lunar-wolf)!


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